Office 365 and Online SharePoint

Hi everyone,

I’m hoping you had the chance to catch Steve’s Office 365 announcement in NYC this morning. This is a really important milestone for the SharePoint business, and I’m thrilled to finally be able to talk to you more about Office 365 and SharePoint Online.
Ten years ago, the SharePoint team started with a simple goal—to help you share your work with others.  Over the last decade, we’ve experienced tremendous growth.  We’ve sold more than 100 million licenses and have grown the product into a recognized leader in collaboration, content management, search, and more.  As a part of Office 365, SharePoint Online represents the next chapter of our story and will make it easier than ever before to share your work with the people that help you get things done.
 

There’s so much packed into Office 365, but there are three things I wanted to highlight:

1.      First, you’re going to love the way Office 365 makes you more productive.  The combination of Office, Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint gives you everything you need to get your work done more efficiently.

2.      Second, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to get started.  Until now, world-class collaboration solutions like SharePoint required setting up your own servers and installing the software.  Office 365 changes the game by putting a world-class productivity infrastructure just a click away. 

3.      Finally, there’s an army of people ready to help.  We have an amazing partner ecosystem and with the release of Office 365 we’re partnering in new ways with service providers like Bell Canada, Telstra and Vodafone to serve businesses of all sizes.

 

Get Started Today!

 

Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, the best way to learn about Office 365 and SharePoint Online is to experience them for yourself.  Here are a few ideas to get started: 

·        Try it out - If you didn’t sign up for the beta back in April, check out the Office 365 site and try it out today. 

·        Move your My Sites, Team Sites, and Intranet Sites online – Once you’ve seen what it can do, you’ll want more. For immediate cost savings, consider moving your My Sites, Team Sites, and Intranet Sites to SharePoint Online. Use the SharePoint Online planning guide for Office 365 to help you develop a migration strategy.

 ·        Customize and extend – SharePoint Online has a lot to offer right out of the box.  But you can also customize and extend it to meet the needs of your growing business.  Simplify routine processes using forms and workflows.  Manage tasks and schedules with team sites.  Track business performance with dashboards and reports.  Check out the Developer Guide for more ways to make SharePoint Online work for your business.

Office 365 is an incredible value for customers and a fantastic opportunity for partners.  It’s a significant milestone for the SharePoint business, and I hope you’ll take some time to see what it can do for you. 
The journey to the cloud will be an exciting ride for all of us, and I look forward to sharing more with you in Anaheim at the SharePoint Conference in October.

 

Thanks,
Jack Pham